


One and a Half Miles

by Debate



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Epic Friendship, Episode s5e13: Damocles pt 2, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, emori POV, that good spacekru stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 16:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Debate/pseuds/Debate
Summary: John Murphy is bleeding out, and neither Emori or Monty are going to let him die.[Taking place during the season 5 finale.]





	One and a Half Miles

Gunfire is the loudest thing Emori’s ever known, bone rattling in a way desert storms and coyote howls could never match. 

The silence that comes when it ends is equally strange. Both she and John hold their breath, hunkered down in the back of the rover. Even with his face clenched in pain, he doesn’t make a sound as they wait for the bubble of silence to burst. A few seconds later, it does. A mighty roar splitting the air from the rear of the gorge. 

John exhales a grunt as he props himself up, holding his shoulder. 

“Did the bullets go through?” she asks, swallowing her fear. In his all black clothes she can’t tell how much blood he’s lost. He shakes his head. Good, then he won’t bleed out. She hopes. His face is still screwed in pain. 

Outside the rover footsteps thud against the ground. The army is pressing forward, but she and John will fall back with the wounded. She pushes open the rover’s back door, catching sight of Echo and Bellamy, waiting up ahead to meet Madi. 

Bellamy looks ready to run over and help her when their eyes meet, but she shakes her head. “Go!” She shouts, “We’re right behind you!” 

She turns back to John as the army runs past. She has to lock part of herself away when she looks at him, hurt, with shattered breathing. “Come on,” she says, sliding out of the rover and offering him a hand, “we don’t want to be left behind.”

He takes it, stumbling out of the rover. Already the bulk of the army has past, rushing into the valley. For a moment the silence returns, until John murmurs, “Holy shit.” She can’t believe it either, they’ve won. But it doesn't feel like it, there’s a pit in her stomach that’s telling her it’s not over.

“Can you walk?” she says, he’s leaning on the side of the rover, looking worse than he had a couple seconds ago. She presses a hand to his shoulder, and something swirls in her gut when she feels how saturated his coat is. Her palm is covered in his blood in an instant. She slings his uninjured arm over her shoulder and puts her arm around his waist, it would almost be familiar if he wasn’t throwing most of his weight on her.

“Yeah,” he bites out, teeth pressed together, and she wonders if he knows how much he’s leaning on her, but she can’t bear to ask. “Let’s go.” They push forward too keep pace with the stragglers, John unsteady on his feet, but still walking. Half the people around them are on stretchers, and in a messed up way it’s good to see people closer to death than John is, he’s strong, he’ll be fine. She’s worrying over nothing, he’s lived through worse. 

She catches sight of Harper’s bright hair a second later, carrying the front half of a stretcher with Jackson. 

“Harper,” she calls out on instinct, with nothing to really say. Harper turns and meets her eyes, a relieved smile on her face even as she plows forward. Then she sees John and her smile shrinks. 

“Murphy are you okay?” She calls out, it’s the only moment she slows by any measure. 

“You know me,” he grunts, “I’ve had worse.” 

Harper nods and keeps moving, reassured by his lame joke, but Emori can’t understand how she’s relieved when there’s that aching hollowness in his voice, that raw pain. 

“Good job, you guys,” Monty says, having creeped up on her right without her notice. That should be a warning sign that something is slipping in her head, no one ever creeps up on her. She nods because it’s what she’s supposed to do, glad that the uphill slope into the valley gives her a reason for her lack of response. It’s not time to be patting themselves on the back yet. 

The trees and mist should be a relief, especially after the blood soaked sand of the gorge, but it’s not as green as it was when she left it, and even when leaves begin to crunch under her feet the stinging smell of blood persists. It’s John’s, oozing out of him to dirty Eden’s floor. Her grip on his waist tightens and it’s the only thing that keeps him upright when he stumbles on his next step. 

“Come on,” she says, “I’ve got you.” And if it’s possible he leans into her more, but it’s fine, it’s nothing she can’t handle. Her steps are slower but they’re still in the right direction. 

“Emori,” Monty says gently next to her, and how had she forgotten he was there? “Are you—”

“I’ve got him,” she interrupts, ignoring the panic in her voice. Maybe Monty doesn’t hear it, or doesn’t recognize it—has she ever been panicked in front of Monty?—because he nods, and rushes forward to stand next to Harper and it’s then that she notices they’re the last in the group. 

“Emori,” John says, his head now slumped forward, his voice thick like the blood weeping out of his shoulder. “Emori, I’ve got a bad feeling.” He stumbles again, but she catches him. She bites her own lip and now she’s bleeding too but she catches him. “Emori, listen to me,” he says once they’re taken three more unsteady steps and she doesn’t want to listen to him. She’ll gladly hear a thousand apologies, but not until those bullets are out of his shoulder and there is more blood pumping in his veins. And like a vengeful god, her wish is granted, a siren’s wail cutting off whatever he might have said. 

“You’re surviving this,” she says, pushing them forward to catch up with the others. She thinks he nods, but maybe the movement of his head is just a result of his unsteady gait. She doesn’t want to know. 

He slips forward more, bent double as he walks, and her arms fall to his, trying to pull him upright. She’s not tired, she’s got him. She’s got him. 

Then’s Raven’s voice crackles, resounding with the siren. “Everyone listen up, life as we know it is about to end. Again. Get back to the transport ship now for immediate evacuation.” 

No. 

There’s been a bitter taste in her mouth since she climbed behind the wheel of the rover that morning and now she knows why.

She grits her teeth, bites down on her fear before it can well up in her. Her grip on John’s arm tightens, even as he lets his arm go limp. 

“Wait, wait, wait, stop a second,” John gasps, but they can’t stop, ahead of her she hears it. _Nine minutes_. The part of her that’s soft and weak combines with the part of her that loves John endlessly, and she ignores the fact that they those parts of her haven’t mixed in months ( _but they have, haven’t they_ ) and she settles him against a tree. 

She thought she was panicked before, but she wasn’t. And she’s not afraid, but she’s not calm either, so she touches him, just touches him. His shoulder, his thigh, and he’s still so warm, so alive. So why is he clenching his eyes shut against her? Against the world? It’s just the pain, she reminds herself, as Niylah comes to sit on his other side.

“He won’t make it,” she says, without even looking him over. She’s wrong. She’s so wrong Emori could throttle her, but Niylah stands, sympathy absent from her face. “We have to go without him.” Emori stands up, gives John room to breathe, to keep breathing, to catch his breath before they keep on moving. She watches as the others push forward, stronger than before, as Harper kisses Monty before going with them. 

They’re going too, she decides, she just needs to get John on his feet. And now she has Monty to help her. 

“She’s righ’” John says when she kneels next to him, hand on his shoulder, his leg, still warm. “Just go. It’s too far. There’s not enough time.”

No. She's left him before: in the desert, in the woods, in space. In the home they'd built for each other. But they’ll never find each other again if she leaves now. 

And he’s wrong. There is enough time. She just has to convince him. 

“Well I guess we’re both going to die,” she says, draws out the words so he knows, so he understands. She’d have died for him six years ago, and she'll die with him today. But only if she has to. “Because there's no way in hell I can leave the man I love behind.”

John’s face crumples, a different kind of pain to add to the first. And she hates that there was ever a time where he thought she didn't love him, where she had wished she hadn't. But he knows now, as sure as he used to. Hope swells briefly in her chest, maybe that’ll be enough. 

But he shakes his head. 

“I’m not going to do that to you, Emori. I can’t run.” 

“Yes you can,” she tells the stupid, stubborn, selfish, selfless man that she loves. She’s about to repeat it, would gladly spend their last nine minutes just getting him to his feet if it meant he could see a future with both of them in it, but Monty has other ideas. 

“No, but I can,” he says, and suddenly sound is rushing back into her ears, and how had she been able to block it all out? The siren pulses, like a dying heartbeat, and John screams like an electric shock. All three of them restart. 

Monty hunches over with John on his shoulders, and her hand goes to his back to keep them both steady. Monty and John heave in counterpoint and she hardly breathes at all, muttering nonsense to the both of them as they push on ahead. 

“We’re almost there,” she says for the sixth time because Monty’s red in the face and so is John, and that stupid siren says they only have three minutes to impact. 

“If we don’t get back, Harper will never let you live it down, Monty,” she blabbles because she can’t breathe and she’s pretty sure her heart isn’t beating right. And nothing makes sense. “Echo will cry, Monty, we can’t make Echo cry.”

“None of us are dying today, Emori,” John grits out. And somewhere she hears _two minutes_ blare in her ears, but her heart soars anyway. Yes, she thinks. 

“Yes,” she says. “You’re doing so good, Monty, we’re so close.” 

“Almost there,” he huffs, the seventh time, and she nods even though he isn’t looking at her. Monty could make her believe in anything. 

They break through the mist, and suddenly the ship is there, a looming salvation. A countdown starts, from somewhere, and she thinks of it like a simulation, as long as you’re strapped in by zero, you’re good. They’ll be good. 

They break through some bushes, and Bellamy is there, a friendly salvation. He rushes over, and puts John’s other arm over his shoulder and he and Monty carry him between them as she reaches out and squeezes Monty’s bicep. It’s just a few more steps. 

“With time to spare,” Bellamy quips as they climb the ramp and Clarke pulls a lever to close the door. Emori feels the thrusters boost from under them, and she gasps in relief, hearing more than seeing Bellamy clasp Monty’s shoulder. 

The ship lurches to side suddenly, a second death wave roaring under them. Clarke is the only one who manages to stay on her feet. Bellamy, John, Monty, and herself all end up in a pile on the floor, and for a weird second she’s thrown back to her first few seconds on the Ark. It’s probably all the panting, Clarke’s the only one with any sort of composure. 

Emori sits up, before any of the boys, leaning over to put pressure on John’s wounds. There’s glassy disbelief in his eyes, and his next breath might have passed as a chuckle if he wasn’t so exhausted. 

“How do you still weigh that much on an all algae diet?” Monty says, breaking the silence, and they all laugh, but maybe her most of all, tears falling into the corners of her mouth. 

“Thought that stuff was supposed to account for all our nutritional needs,” John says, a six year old joke, because the stupid man always has to get in the last word. His left hand comes up to cover hers on his shoulder. 

“That doesn’t mean it’ll make you a dead weight,” Monty says, his beautiful smile bright on his face, because no one’s dead, they’re all alive. 

“Not dead,” John counters, reading her mind, and Bellamy laughs, so the rest of them have to. “Thanks, Monty,” he says, lower, and for a moment she thinks she’s the only one that’s heard, but she looks up and Monty’s still grinning at the both of them. 

“‘Course,” he says lowly to match, and pats John’s leg. “Now go see Abby so you can keep being not-dead.” 

“Not-dead,” he repeats as she helps him up. He feels lighter and she likes to think that’s because the sense of doom is gone and not because of blood loss. “That’s our new thing, Green,” he continues, leaning his head against hers, joking and half-delusional, “not-deadweight.” 

“Sure Murphy,” Monty replies, “It means no cowardice, no uselessness.” Emori doesn’t know what he means, but John must, he blinks heavily. 

“Yeah,” John agrees after a moment, and Monty leans forward to pat his shoulder one more time before leaving the strange entry-way to the ship, to find Harper, no doubt. Bellamy is hot on his tails, but Clarke lingers for a moment like she wants to offer them help but then decides not to, leaving them alone as they slowly make their way further into the ship. John’s limbs are heavy, as are hers, but they’re alive. They’re all alive. “Yeah,” John repeats one last time, just to her.

**Author's Note:**

> this is very unedited, and i hate the ending, just know that the finale made me feel a lot of things


End file.
